The Kharkov researcher of Kazakhstan antiquities: Semen Semenov-Zuser

This article is about the fate of the Kharkov scientist S.A. Semenov-Zuser dedicated to the ancient history of Kazakhstan. His scientific work was written during his evacuation in Kyzylorda. During his stay in Kyzylorda the scientist indicated the main topics that required study: physical and geographical environment of ancient Kazakhstan; the oldest human in the territory of Kazakhstan (the Paleolithic Age); the New Stone (Neolithic) Age in Kazakhstan; the Bronze Age in Kazakhstan; the Iron Age (the Issedones); the Arimaspi; the Massagets; the Saks; the problem of Yuezhi (Yue-shi) peoples and the Tochars; the Usuns and the Kanguy (Kan-gly); the era of "peoples' migration"; the Sogdian colonization of Kazakhstan and others. The result of his fruitful work during evacuation was his monograph Drevniy Kazakhstan: ot paleolita do arabskogo zavoevaniya [Ancient Kazakhstan from the Paleolithic Age to the Arab Conquest]. The first version of the study was 174 pages. The final manuscript consisted of 235 pages. At the end of the study he presented his monograph for review to the Director of the Language and Literature Institute of the Kazakh Branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR B. Suleimenov, to academicians A.M. Pankratov and I.Meschaninov and professors M.P. Vyatkin and A. Mashanov. The hard martial law, the fight against Nazi Germany for the liberation of the Soviet country left its mark on the history of science and scientific concepts. The invaders considered themselves to belong to the Aryan Nation, and the peoples of the Soviet Union to the second-class nations. Kazakh historians followed the Soviet ideology of that time, that all the Aryan was alien, and cautiously watched the relationship with the Iranian civilization. In an official letter from the Institute of Language, Literature and History of the Kazakh branch of the USSR, Professor S.A. Semenov-Zuser received the answer that the manuscript was not free of errors, especially on issues of ethnogenesis of the Kazakh people that the scientist interpreted as a result of the cultural influence of the Iranians. The review recommended that the author should arrive to Almaty for a week to agree on the changes in the manuscript. Despite the negative review from the Institute of Language, Literature and History of the Kazakh branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the work of S.A. Semenov-Zuser was praised by well-known scientists, specialists in the ancient history of Central Asia and Kazakhstan. The leading author of the textbook Istoriya Kazakhskoy SSR [History of the Kazakh SSR] (1943) Academician A.M. Pankratova and Professor M.P. Vyatkin petitioned the USSR Academy of Sciences to recommend the manuscript for publication in a letter dated 26 February 1943. Unfortunately, S.A. Semenov-Zuser's monograph was not published. For more than 70 years the manuscript of the book in its two versions is stored in the archive of the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography of V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University.

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